When you are facing a quarterback like Teddy Bridgewater, you are going to have to score a lot of points. Rutgers mustered a meager ten points in this game, a season low by far, as the unit was a complete disaster.It was like a 2010 esque nightmare of a performance. Gary Nova threw four interceptions, the offensive line could not pass protect to save their lives, and the running game produced next to nothing.
With Nova, these types of games can unfortunately happen. He had the game against Kent State last year, and he just couldn't take care of the ball in this game. He's a gunslinger; that's who he is. These types of quarterbacks are double edge swords, and he hurt the team for the first time all year after coming up huge for them so many times earlier in the season. He forced a lot of throws through tight windows, and it just was not working. He had no time to throw the ball, and that certainly didn't help matters. I wonder if he put too much pressure on himself thinking he would have to outplay Teddy in order for his team to win. I still have a lot of faith in Nova going forward, but he was just awful in this game, there's no way around it.
Rutgers was also unable to run the ball in this contest, as they looked very much like a team playing on short rest following a triple overtime game. The line could not get much of a push, and the backs were unable to do anything with limited space to run. This was especially unfortunate if you watched Louisville lose to UCF last week, as the Golden Knights won by running it down their throats. If you like playing pointless hypotheticals, you could think the results would have been different if Paul James played, but injuries are part of the game and you have to just deal with it.
The defense only gave up 24 points, which isn't too bad, but they did a whole hell of a lot of bending with out breaking. The secondary predictable got torn to bits by Teddy Bridgewater (he missed quite a few throws and was missing his top receiver too), and more disconcertingly struggled against the run for what feels like the first time in three years. They managed to make some big plays to prevent the Cardinals from putting more points on the board, and gave the offense and opportunity to win, despite not playing well overall.
The red zone defense was very good, but they were in the red zone way too much for my liking. Jeremy Deering made a nice play providing coverage over the top to intercept a pass from Bridgewater in the end zone late in the first half. Jamal Merrell also blocked a kick, and Anthony Cioffi timed a blitz perfectly and sacked Bridgewater while also knocking the ball loose. Dave Milewski had an opportunity to scoop and score after that, but he fell on the ball instead. There was nobody around him, but it's tough to fault a lineman for just falling on top of it,
The star of the game for Rutgers was middle linebacker Steve Longa, who continued to be an explosive play maker on the inside. He burst through the line to make some plays in the back field,and continued to pile up his tackle total.
Rutgers played pretty poorly in this game, and it cost them a chance at an upset (even though the two teams are pretty evenly matched talent wise). Fortunately, UCF's win the following week over Louisville opened the door for Rutgers to win a share of the conference title should they win out.But there's still a long way to go before that.
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